Windows 9 rumor mill heating up, heading for an April 2015 arrival

Codenamed "Threshold," Microsoft might start talking about it in a few months.

Windows watcher Paul Thurrott is reporting that, according to his sources, Microsoft will start talking about a new Windows version, codenamed Threshold, at its BUILD conference in April. Thurrott says that this version will be released, probably with the name Windows 9, a year thereafter.

Details of Threshold are thus far scarce, but a few things are notable. Thurrott says that there won't be an alpha or beta in time for the BUILD conference, and the product won't even begin development until April. Rather, the company will outline its vision and talk about what Threshold will contain.

Microsoft is striving to reach a happy medium between the extreme sharing and openness of the Longhorn project—in which the company talked up a lot of things that were either never delivered at all, or never delivered in the way originally described—and the extreme secrecy of Windows 7 and 8 that was the hallmark of Steven Sinofsky's reign at the company.

One hopes that this will bring more receptiveness to feedback. Problems with Windows 8—its inconsistent approach, its lack of tutorial, the failure to clearly distinguish between Windows 8 and Windows RT—were all reported, both within Microsoft and from outside, during Windows 8's development. They were met with assertions that the perceived problems were not real problems and that no changes were necessary. When Windows 8 shipped, it became clear that they were, in fact, real problems. Windows 8.1 did a lot to address them, but perhaps not enough.

With this "vision" announcement, Microsoft will hope to drum up some excitement and interest in Windows. This is something the company has lacked for a long time, and it's not clear it will ever return. It's a double-edged sword. There was excitement and interest, back in the day, in the Longhorn vision—new programming model, fancy new filesystem, GPU-accelerated graphics, and more—but Microsoft's failure to temper that vision was, I think a partial cause for the Windows Vista backlash. Microsoft made grand promises, failed to clearly walk them back, and then delivered on virtually none of them.

In the light of this, we can expect the Threshold announcement to be a little more grounded. For Longhorn, Microsoft was promising things that were hard to solve even in theory. These problems turned out to be impractical to solve in practice, and so it was little surprise that Microsoft didn't deliver the promised software. The Threshold announcement should be much more realistic while still being enough to interest people.

Between BUILD and next April's release, Thurrott writes that Microsoft plans to have three milestone builds, though he doesn't know which, if any, will be made publicly available.

So what'll be in Threshold? The two things Thurrott says are a way of running Metro apps on the desktop and a reinstatement of the Start menu. Our sources say that's only sort of true, and that it won't be the Start menu as such but rather something new. Start menuesque, perhaps, but not a literal Start menu.

There are already third party apps for reinstating the Start menu and running Metro apps within Windows. Most of them leave something to be desired, for example by squandering good parts of the Start screen such as its live tiles and 2D organization. Sticking Metro apps into windows also isn't particularly streamlined. Metro apps, particularly in Windows 8, can make various assumptions about their size that windowed apps can't. Putting them in arbitrarily sized windows breaks those assumptions.

A proper, first-party solution is certainly feasible. Designer Jay Machalani created a set of neat mockups of how a more coherent Windows might look, and his concepts are striking because rather than being simply a reversion to Windows 7, they do appear to fuse the best of both worlds. This is not to say that Microsoft will do anything quite this adventurous.

Little else is even speculated about Threshold, except for one thing it won't be: according to Mary Jo Foley, it won't be the unified Windows operating system that Microsoft will eventually deliver in one form or another.

ANY Windows update that doesn't including DUMPING that gawdawful UI and returning to the Explorer UI for desktops will FAIL even worse than Windows 8.

Best thing Microsoft could do right now for themselves would be to port the under the hood components of Windows 8.x to Windows 7, Release it as Windows 7.5 AND APOLOGIZE TO DESKTOP USERS, promising that the Explorer mouse/keyboard UI will be maintained concurrently next to the touchscreen UI.

But they aren't smart enough to do that, which is why I don't think Microsoft will be relevant to the PC market much longer.

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

A friend of mine bought a new Lenovo PC that came with Pokki pre-installed. If MS comes up with a new Start Menu that works like that, along with other items like allowing the windowing of "Modern" apps, I can certainly get behind that.

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

I reiterate: If they keep anything like the touchscreen themed UI of Windows 8 as the default and only choice for standard desktops it won't be adopted in the enterprise any more than Windows 8 has or will be.

I, for one, as an IT Systems Engineer have NO plans whatsoever to install even one single Windows 8x desktop in my company (we do not have the time, NOR the will to have to teach 300 employees how to use a totally foreign UI FOR NO GOOD REASON!). We will avoid it like we did Vista and hope that either Microsoft comes to it's senses (like they did with Windows 7) or they die off and we switch to Macs or another OS.

Windows 7 has just become the new XP, it will hang around FAR longer than it should,

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

I reiterate:

Edit: love how Ars has devolved into a "Microsoft Fanbois only club"

For one, people are downvoting you for feeling the need to reiterate the same stupid point a minute after your first one. For the second, you are iterating a point that has been beaten to death and has been discussed into oblivion. No on cares what you think about the UI, especially since you bring nothing new to the discussion. People either agree or don't agree with you, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Windows 9 since they are showing no intent on backtracking.

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

I reiterate: If they keep anything like the touchscreen themed UI of Windows 8 as the default and only choice for standard desktops it won't be adopted in the enterprise any more than Windows 8 has or will be.

I, for one, as an IT Systems Engineer have NO plans whatsoever to install even one single Windows 8x desktop in my company (we do not have the time, NOR the will to have to teach 300 employees how to use a totally foreign UI FOR NO GOOD REASON!). We will avoid it like we did Vista and hope that either Microsoft comes to it's senses (like they did with Windows 7) or they die off and we switch to Macs or another OS.

Windows 7 has just become the new XP, it will hang around FAR longer than it should, simply because Microsoft's successor is a brick of dung.

Edit: love how Ars has devolved into a "Microsoft Fanbois only club"

I typed my comment on an iPad. Which is ten feet from my MacBook Pro. Which sits next to my Lumia 920. I didn't down vote you, but can tell you that you're being down voted because you come off a little dickish in your comments.

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

I reiterate: If they keep anything like the touchscreen themed UI of Windows 8 as the default and only choice for standard desktops it won't be adopted in the enterprise any more than Windows 8 has or will be.

[rant] "

I think we all learned where you stand on this issue from your first post. Thanks for reiterating.

The key form factor that will turn Windows 8/Metro around is basically the Lenovo tablet that Ars just previewed today from CES. Super portable, great ports when plugged into a dock, runs full x86 Windows (granted it should be x86-64 soon enough). If enterprises are so gung-ho on building iOS apps, surely a full blown windows tablet would be appealing. However, if the Vista experience teaches us anything about corporate adoption, Windows 8 could be in for a rough medium-term ride (we make enterprise software for inventory management. not one customer upgraded to Vista, all went straight to win7, many recently).

People either agree or don't agree with you, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Windows 9 since they are showing no intent on backtracking.

I can't help but read that as "they are showing no intent on keeping customers." If you continue to deliver a product people don't want, they'll find alternatives.

I'm already trying my best to get everything running in Wine that I can't outright replace. If Win9 isn't a vast departure of their Win8 stubbornness that's pretty much the nail in the MS coffin for me.

The key form factor that will turn Windows 8/Metro around is basically the Lenovo tablet that Ars just previewed today from CES. Super portable, great ports when plugged into a dock, runs full x86 Windows (granted it should be x86-64 soon enough). If enterprises are so gung-ho on building iOS apps, surely a full blown windows tablet would be appealing. However, if the Vista experience teaches us anything about corporate adoption, Windows 8 could be in for a rough medium-term ride (we make enterprise software for inventory management. not one customer upgraded to Vista, all went straight to win7, many recently).

It's a great concept - disconnect and take your PC with you when you leave the house.

My concerns are 1) Local storage, and 2) TDP. The only thing I need Windows for these days is games, and that tends to lead to a power hungry and heat dissapating GPU.

Of course, if my "main PC" ran a Linux distro most of that wouldn't matter...

Microsoft should mimic Intel's tic-toc release schedule. Fair or not, they can probably start predicting poor enterprise adoption with their "tic" releases (Vista, 8). But those operating systems are important in that they lay the ground work for their successor OS', which seem to be more popular. Perhaps because they've ironed out the kinks and given customers time to acclimate.

I still think they're using Kinect to beta test for Windows 9 or 10, where we'll start seeing things get Minority Reportesque.

I reiterate:

Edit: love how Ars has devolved into a "Microsoft Fanbois only club"

For one, people are downvoting you for feeling the need to reiterate the same stupid point a minute after your first one. For the second, you are iterating a point that has been beaten to death and has been discussed into oblivion. No on cares what you think about the UI, especially since you bring nothing new to the discussion. People either agree or don't agree with you, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Windows 9 since they are showing no intent on backtracking.

Apple manages to maintain both a desktop OS and a mobile OS that works well on phones and tablets.Are you saying that Microsoft is incapable of that?

Windows 8 failed BECAUSE of the UI. No other reason, because under the hood (and once heavily modified to revert the UI) it's actually an improvement over Windows 7. Thing is, I shouldn't HAVE to modify the UI on a new OS that cost me money just to make it USABLE for a majority of users.

If Microsoft plans to stick to this idea they are finished on the PC. I'd say they would be finished on tablets and phones too, but they never have been a player in those spaces anyway. Not only is this UI awful on a machine that uses a keyboard and mouse for input, I've TRIED it on a tablet as well. It's nearly as bad on touch devices as it is on the PC. Google and Apple are lightyears ahead of Microsoft in touchscreen usability.

Hopefully the new CEO comes in and changes the direction before it's too late.

This article overlooks that the UI wasn't the only issue with Windows 8. The business model for Windows and mobile versions of Windows is fractured if not broken.

In other words, any redesign of Windows has to fix the app store model. Windowing the Metro stuff is a good fist step but not sufficient. How do they get traction with Windows when their own premier stuff is moving to the web via Azure and mobile on ios/Android?

The key form factor that will turn Windows 8/Metro around is basically the Lenovo tablet that Ars just previewed today from CES. Super portable, great ports when plugged into a dock, runs full x86 Windows (granted it should be x86-64 soon enough). If enterprises are so gung-ho on building iOS apps, surely a full blown windows tablet would be appealing. However, if the Vista experience teaches us anything about corporate adoption, Windows 8 could be in for a rough medium-term ride (we make enterprise software for inventory management. not one customer upgraded to Vista, all went straight to win7, many recently).

It's a great concept - disconnect and take your PC with you when you leave the house.

My concerns are 1) Local storage, and 2) TDP. The only thing I need Windows for these days is games, and that tends to lead to a power hungry and heat dissapating GPU.

Of course, if my "main PC" ran a Linux distro most of that wouldn't matter...

I want mounting technology to get advanced enough that you can house the hungry GPU in the mount and hot plug it.

What if Metro apps, in addition to how they're currently used in the metro UI, could appear windowed on the desktop, but those windows were locked in at certain sizes and aspect ratios instead of infinitely resizeable? That'd allow developers to continue develop metro apps in much the way they do now (not having to plan for a million sizes and shapes of window), and that'd allow people with convertible/touchscreen devices to use metro apps as they do right now in the metro UI, but it would make those apps far more accessible to traditional desktop users.

What if Metro apps, in addition to how they're currently used in the metro UI, could appear windowed on the desktop, but those windows were locked in at certain sizes and aspect ratios instead of infinitely resizeable? That'd allow developers to continue develop metro apps in much the way they do now (not having to plan for a million sizes and shapes of window), and that'd allow people with convertible/touchscreen devices to use metro apps as they do right now in the metro UI, but it would make those apps far more accessible to traditional desktop users.

That would be a good idea, but I can see all kinds of problems. DPI? I already have issues with non-resizable Java GUIs, and having either a lot of pixels or too few would make those apps unusable. Well, without a magnifying glass.

If Microsoft plans to stick to this idea they are finished on the PC. I'd say they would be finished on tablets and phones too, but they never have been a player in those spaces anyway. Not only is this UI awful on a machine that uses a keyboard and mouse for input, I've TRIED it on a tablet as well. It's nearly as bad on touch devices as it is on the PC. Google and Apple are lightyears ahead of Microsoft in touchscreen usability.

I've got a Galaxy S3 and a VAIO Duo 11. The S3 had more intuitive touchscreen controls, but once you looked up the gestures to use Win8, I personally find Metro more usable than Android, particularly when multitasking. The one exception to this rule is Android's swappable keyboards (I'm a Swiftkey Flow fanboy).

Windows 8 was such an unusable POS for anyone not emotionally or financially invested in its success, it will be interesting to see where they go with 9. Since it is an odd number, it has a higher chance of being a fair operating system - MS seems to faceplant on the even numbers for some reason. I downgraded to Windows 7 and am perfectly happy with it. If Windows 9 isn't super amazing (and responsive to customer feedback) then I will probably just dualboot W7 and something else. By the time W9 is out, my guess is Steam OS will be where it needs to be in order to support my gaming habits.

The key form factor that will turn Windows 8/Metro around is basically the Lenovo tablet that Ars just previewed today from CES. Super portable, great ports when plugged into a dock, runs full x86 Windows (granted it should be x86-64 soon enough). If enterprises are so gung-ho on building iOS apps, surely a full blown windows tablet would be appealing. However, if the Vista experience teaches us anything about corporate adoption, Windows 8 could be in for a rough medium-term ride (we make enterprise software for inventory management. not one customer upgraded to Vista, all went straight to win7, many recently).

It's a great concept - disconnect and take your PC with you when you leave the house.

My concerns are 1) Local storage, and 2) TDP. The only thing I need Windows for these days is games, and that tends to lead to a power hungry and heat dissapating GPU.

Of course, if my "main PC" ran a Linux distro most of that wouldn't matter...

I want mounting technology to get advanced enough that you can house the hungry GPU in the mount and hot plug it.

Since PCI-e does have hotplug support via several methods and virtually all CPU's will have a reasonable non-gaming GPU integrated in them; it strikes me as entirely reasonable - if not inevitable - to see a solution such as the one you've described; wherein your power hungry AMD/Nvidia $LATEST_AWESOME_GPU lives in the dock; then un-docking automatically reverts to the IGP - I've seen this implemented in some laptops as well, with the "performance/stamina" type switch.

I was one of the loudest detractors of Win 8, I mean I was *really vocal* in my hate.

While I still prefer Windows 7 I have forced myself to use Windows 8.1 on all but my work laptop and honestly even with a few remaining rough edges I've gotten used to it. The subtle improvements in 8.1 made this significantly easier to do.

That said, I would love to see some features of Windows 7's UI backported into a 'Professional' edition on Windows 9. Managing Windows Updates for one. Integrating Metro and Desktop mode more seamlessly would be another.

What if Metro apps, in addition to how they're currently used in the metro UI, could appear windowed on the desktop, but those windows were locked in at certain sizes and aspect ratios instead of infinitely resizeable? That'd allow developers to continue develop metro apps in much the way they do now (not having to plan for a million sizes and shapes of window), and that'd allow people with convertible/touchscreen devices to use metro apps as they do right now in the metro UI, but it would make those apps far more accessible to traditional desktop users.

Desktop windows can have minimum width and height already, so they could just keep using the current 320/500x768 minimums and it wouldn't be all that weird. What could be trickier is doing something about things like the edge UI that may feel pretty awkward in an overlapping-windows context.

The other tricky thing is working out the actual UI and rules for moving apps back and forth between desktop and immersive modes, and whether there's some global mode switch like was proposed in those mockups, and if so, how do you deal with problems like the fact that desktop apps might want to do things like create child windows or take weird arbitrary dependencies on desktop shell elements (e.g., some bespoke notification scheme) that wouldn't make much sense in "metro mode", and do you try to preserve IMO useful scenarios like running a fullscreen app on one monitor and the desktop on another, or snapping a communication app beside the desktop, that would seemingly be nixed by a strict modal separation?

I was one of the loudest detractors of Win 8, I mean I was *really vocal* in my hate.

While I still prefer Windows 7 I have forced myself to use Windows 8.1 on all but my work laptop and honestly even with a few remaining rough edges I've gotten used to it. The subtle improvements in 8.1 made this significantly easier to do.

That said, I would love to see some features of Windows 7's UI backported into a 'Professional' edition on Windows 9. Managing Windows Updates for one. Integrating Metro and Desktop mode more seamlessly would be another.

This time though I'll try and keep an open mind.

I moved to Mint 15/16. I'll tell you why.1. Everything just works2. Everything works as it used to.3. Unified updater is heaven4. Software Package manager is amazing.5. LibreOffice is "good enough"

Unless you need some software that isn't available Mint 15/16 is heaven. I set my elderly neighbor up with it (a former Vista user) and he loves it. His "girlfriend" even added a MiFi to it... no help needed from me.

I really like Jay's approach to fixing Windows 8 -- it is consistent with the Windows 8 design guidelines, has a consistent workflow when in either the TIFKAM or Desktop environments, has consistent iconography in the Desktop that fits with TIFKAM and I like the look of the start menu.